Stories

By Tiffany Trudewind Part 1. Seeing Color My second grader filled the car with electric energy as he climbed in and handed me a sheet of paper with a class announcement. It was finally here. He had watched his older sister and brother experience fun second grade activities at this school and now it was his…

Williamson’s Chapel UMC and Morrow’s Chapel UMC (Mooresville, NC) are gearing up to host the next What LIES Between Us 5-week series, Sundays, September 9th through October 7th. Childcare is sponsored! …and the children will be fed dinner! …and because its open to the public, you can invite friends! What an incredible deal! LEARN MORE & REGISTER HERE! We look…

Our eight year old daughter and I (Lucretia) had the privilege of joining Latasha Morrison (Be The Bridge to Racial Unity) to interview Dorena Williamson, author of ColorFull. ColorFull is a children’s book that takes a life-giving approach to talking about skin tone and race! ColorFull encourages us to acknowledge and celebrate the many hues of humanity instead…

To participate in the 3-part workshop series on ‘Raising White Kids’ by Jennifer Harvey: Purchase ‘Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America’ by Jennifer Harvey. RSVP “Going” to our facebook event and then share the event with your friends. Meet us at Advent Coworking* on Sunday, March 4 at 2pm, ready to discuss…

Rummaging through keep-sake boxes, looking for memorabilia for an unrelated project, I found this old friend! My little book–just as I had remembered it! I was elated and relieved. I thought I’d left it at my mom’s house with other childhood keep-sakes, which meant that I may never see it again…moms can’t be expected to store everybody’s…

Did you attend the Fresh Take Conference last Friday? Were you intrigued by the keynote address, If We Don’t Keep Them in the Dark, They Will Light Up The World? Did you attend the complementary workshops, How Caregivers and Teachers Discuss Race with Children (Dr. Tehia Starker-Glass of UNCC) and Building the Capacity for Healthy Conversations about…

by Dr. Tehia Starker-Glass, Associate Professor of Elementary Education and Educational Psychology in the department of Reading and Elementary Education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. As caregivers and teachers, how can we move beyond the popular, but over-simplified ‘dream’ lesson, and truly honor all that Dr. King and the nation did to move civil rights forward? Furthermore,…

If you enjoyed this group study and would like to do it again or invite friends and family to attend, this is the perfect opportunity! The series takes place over five consecutive Sundays (1/14-2/11), 4-5:30pm. Register NOW to reserve your spot. To reserve childcare, email Julie Wentzat jwentz@mpumc.org. Have you seen our latest newsletter? It features an amazing TED Talk about talking to children…

Why are we so bad at talking with children about skin tone and race? If we don’t keep them in the dark, children will light up the world.” This is the revelation that inspired this talk, which I shared at TEDx Charlotte (October 2017). I share a few real life instances where people exhibit how horrible we are…

by Dr. Tehia Starker Glass, UNCC’s College of Education. Tis the season for depicting the stories that coincide with the holidays! Thanksgiving is up next and my husband and I have the responsibility of educating our 18 month old and 3 year old about what and why we celebrate. We choose to say, “No Thanks” to going along…

Pursuing Extraordinary Outcomes in Public Education National Conference UNC Charlotte Center City October 30, 2017 Presenters: Lucretia Carter Berry, Brownicity.com, Tehia Starker Glass, UNC Charlotte This presentation represents a university and community partnership of assisting parents to discuss race with their children. /broun’ isədē/ Brown represents melanin. Ethnicity means “that which we have in common.”…

Although this post was created for a school’s parents event, any and everyone is welcome to engage and share this content. At this month’s Parent Advisory, Lucretia will lead us in an important discussion. Telling children, “ we don’t see color,” or “everyone is the same,” does not help them understand that race should not matter. In…

The next “What LIES Between US‘ five-week course is being hosted by Church at Charlotte, Sunday evenings beginning September 10th from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. We designed this series specifically for ‘beginners’ to the race conversation and analysis. Participants gain historical and social context for racial division, support for self-reflection, healing, and growth, and have the opportunity…

This year’s Loving Day (2017) marks the 50th anniversary of the1967 United States Supreme Court decision Loving v. Virginia which struck down all anti-miscegenation laws remaining in sixteen U.S. states. Learn more at LovingDay.org. What has changed in 50 years? According to a new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data, in 2015,…

We continue to be pleasantly surprised when we learn that someone is interested in the Brownicity story; that people outside of our family are getting something from it; that they are moved and inspired by it. I see so much division and fist pumping, but very few people stepping across the aisle to offer a gentle…

Parents and teachers: Participate in this study (Parent Survey, Teacher Survey) conducted by our very own Dr. Tehia Starker Glass of UNCC’s College of Education. If you are one of the first 50 participants for this study, you will receive a $50 Amazon gift card! Simply, complete both the survey AND an interview by July 15, 2017. In…

(Church at Charlotte’s City Series Podcast with guest Dr. Lucretia Carter Berry of Brownicity.) What is she going to say about race? Who is she going to blame?” These are the thoughts that I imagine are behind those wide eyes staring forward at me. I can feel people subconsciously strapping in for what ever wild…

Why? Because we need to know what has happened and how it has affected all of us before we can move towards recovery. Bring your brokenness, your pain, your questions, your desire to heal, your willingness to learn…bring your whole self to this experience and leave inspired, encouraged and empowered. Register here. You desire healing and…

For our family, it seems ridiculous to pretend that we don’t see differences in our skin tone. In fact, we celebrate the diversity of our beautiful hues that make up the tapestry of our and the ‘hue-man’ family. Also, it seems odd that we would not talk about race with our young children, considering that…

We entered 2016 knowing that we were to continue to disrupt the race narrative and send a dismantling ripple effect to expose the racial legacy of lies and injustice. Without knowing exactly how we would do this, we aligned with the disruption! 2016 seems to have been the year to shape and catapult us into who we are becoming. 2016 invited…

This is the beginning of an intricate text conversation I had this morning with my cousin, who is a wife, mom of two, and an award winning educator. I was furious and heart broken! But not wanting to jump to conclusions, I held myself back from blaming this hideous presidential campaign we endured for the last…

I don’t think we’ve ever been this vulnerable and bold on stage! icuTalks and Brownicity joined forces two weeks, to the day, of the shooting of Charlotte citizen, Keith Lamont Scott which inspired protests by fellow Charlotteans. Two weeks marks the time when people begin to abandon those who are grieving and go back to ‘normalcy.’…

In line with our mission to encourage, equip and empower families to engage in healing and life-giving conversations about race, we offer a group experience called What LIES Between Us. The facilitated sessions, journal, and content are designed to foster first steps toward racial healing. Currently, the sessions are being hosted by Ann Fields. The…

by Lucretia Carter Berry This is Ali Michael. Listen to her story. Are you comfortable talking about skin tone and race? Why or why not? What were you taught about race in your home? In your school? How were you taught about race? Do you have ‘race talk’ anxiety? My four year old, while watching…

South Carolina State Museum – Family Field Trip Join us for our FIRST field trip, Saturday, August 27! (We say first because we have already started planning more). For a limited engagement, the South Carolina State Museum is hosting the blockbuster exhibit, RACE ARE WE SO DIFFERENT?, a project of the American Anthropological Association and funded…

by Lucretia Carter Berry When Simone Manuel won, I heard the beautiful sound of false beliefs being flushed down the drain. I love that sound! And with that sound, more and more the asinine belief system established by race ideology loses it grip. Olympians are made when talent, hard work, perseverance, opportunity and support align.…

Join us for our FIRST field trip, Saturday, August 27! (We say first because we have already started planning more). For a limited engagement, the South Carolina State Museum is hosting the blockbuster exhibit, RACE ARE WE SO DIFFERENT?, a project of the American Anthropological Association and funded by the Ford Foundation & National Science Foundation.…

by Lucretia Carter Berry They walked with Jesus witnessing him perform many miracles. Out of all the amazing things that the disciples could have asked Jesus to teach them to do, the only thing they requested was to be taught how to pray? Why? Weren’t they entrenched in a culture full of daily prayers–great prayers that they inherited…

This article by Lucretia Carter Berry was first featured earlier this year in For Every Mom, entitled Your Children See Color—and It’s Beautiful! Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Be Afraid to Talk About It. We thought we’d feature it here as we’ve recently been inundated with questions about how to engage in change. These 7 steps are a good start.…

Hair is not a race! Hair is not ethnic! All people have ethnicity! Beauty belongs to everyone! There is no black hair, white hair, good hair or bad hair. And there is no such thing as ethnic hair or ethnic beauty! The beauty aisles divide us along imaginary lines conceived by an ideology meant to…

We are Nathan and Lucretia Berry, creators of Brownicity: The Art & Beauty of Living & Loving Beyond Race. Brownicity (pronounced like ethnicity) is our platform for disrupting the race narrative! The term, Brownicity is a combination of the words ‘brown,’ as in we are all hues of brown and ‘ethnicity,’ as in that which we have…

We finished our first 21-Day Race Ideology Detox. People gathered each Wednesday for a month to primarily not talk about race, but to actually learn about race and view this socio-political construct through the lens of faith. Two churches from different denominations came together to host the weekly meetings. You can read more about the…

presented by Lucretia Berry. ‘Why is your skin a different color than mine?’ ‘My skin is not white/black, why is it called white/black?’ What are some of the skin tone or race related questions that you’ve been asked by a child? One summer I was collecting data in an Appalachian preschool where everyone was white.…

We reformatted our initial Brown-tables sessions into twenty-one days of awakening, reflective thinking and growing our capacity to foster healing and change. For the month of April, Independence Hill Baptist Church along with Jonahville AME Zion Church will be hosting the detox! To participate, join us each Wednesday at 6:15pm at IHBC. Childcare is provided! Please feel…

by Lucretia Carter Berry I’m Not Racist!…Am I? is a feature documentary about how this next generation is going to confront racism. The film’s unique focus on kids and family immediately grabbed our attention. So a few of us Brownicity moms moved heaven and earth to attend the screening at Trinity Episcopal School in Charlotte,…

by Lucretia Carter Berry When our children talk about skin color, we parents don’t have to be afraid to engage in their conversations. Actually we can let them lead the way. When children talk about their friend’s skin being brown, peach, pink, etc., they are simply noticing the obvious. But parents have been shamed into shunning…

‘How do we get the truth—the knowledge about race/ism—to people?’ This was the question posed by a college student following the lecture given by Ta-Nehisi Coates at Davidson College (November 16. 2015). This particular student, a young man, was excited about what he’d uncovered in his college course regarding anti-racist education. I could tell that…

Session 5 If you could accumulate the time you’ve spent longing, wishing, hoping and praying for a better world, how many hours would it be? Probably a lot. I know as an African-American woman married to a white man and mom of multi-ethnic children, I contemplate a world where race does not interfere with the…

Yes, it is a rich descriptive—a poetic tag line, but what does it actually mean? It describes those of us who have recognized the destructive force rendered through race ideology and have decided to deny it leverage in our lives—to the best of our abilities. We know that in its very conception, race ideology was…

We’ve All Been Duped We’ve all been duped! Tricked into thinking that race is WHO WE ARE–is ESSENTIAL to our identity! Tricked into thinking that race is entitled to our allegiance. And so we surrender to its SIREN, calling us to COAGULATE into sides, fortified to defend against the OPPOSITION–the opposition that race created. Yes,…

Session 2 Our ‘Tribe Vibe’ was melodious, complimentary, harmonious and groovy. Our instruments were our hums, our hands tapping on our chests and tables, our words and our laughter all set to syncopation. Honestly, I believe we were surprised at how well we flowed together as ONE unified choir while maintaining the unique vibe of…

When asked to be guest contributor for Real Talk About Race for the January 2014 edition of The Tablet, Wake Forest Divinity student publication, Nathan Berry candidly revealed our family’s ideas, perspective and approach to ‘race.’ The title, Brown Like Me reflects our approach to conscious de-racing — exposing the lie and illusion of race…